Amahi Install Partitions

[cowen]

Hi Guys,

Firstly, let me explain I am coming from the Windows world. In this case it is my own naivety and inexperience is causing most of the problems. Unfortunately though, I can't find a a nice comprehensive installation guide with all the information I need.

My current problem is that I installed Amahi and left all of the partition settings as default. I then started copying my data to the server last night only to discover that my music folder was on the '/' partition and this was only 47Gb. The home partition was 812Gb.

So I assume now I have to re-install and set the correct partition sizes that I need and from what I have read, there seems to be several differing opinions about what the recommended partition sizes should be. I have read that I need to be careful if I plan to later install Greyhole.

My question is then this.......
What do the Amahi administrators/programmers recommend as sensible partition settings?

[cowen]

Further to this, I have read several WIKI posts but these relate to earlier Fedora/Amahi installations and the configuration of these bare no resemblance to the Amahi 7.1 install. In this case an 'idiots' guide would be very welcome.

Some specific questions then...
1. What are the recommended partitions for amahi 7.1? (remebering Greyhole constraints). (as above)
2. I have an 80Gb and 10000Gb drives available. Does it make sense to use the 80Gb for system and 1000Gb for data? If so, how do I configure this during install?
3. Are there any special partition requirements for owncloud?
4. Is there a document that explains in very simple terms the purpose of the partitions?

I am still very impressed with Amahi, but it is a real battle to get all of the relevant information together to allow a good working system to be installed with the correct partitions etc..

[sgtfoo]

As Amahi version 7 is relatively new and the underlying Fedora release is also quite new (including it's installer as well) the tutorials in the docs or the wiki may not translate directly to the look of it, but the principals stay the same.

Although the official guides may not say it directly, it is suggested to do your own manual partitioning to accommodate your own specific drive layout. Everyone has different drive layouts, but all layouts can be used effectively.

Here's some initial thoughts to consider..
(and yes, before anyone says it, this stuff will be added to the wiki)
(and yes, while some of this seems opinionated, when someone doesn't apply some of these concepts, there tends to be more troubles later on with system builds lacking essential practices)

- your data can be stored: with OR without greyhole and benefits from being on another drive but SHOULD be on a unique partition -- at bare minimum.

- DO manually setup your partitions - for simplicity sake the system OS partitions are: 1) /boot 2) swap 3) / [root]
boot should be 500MB - swap should be the size of your RAM or 1.5x your RAM - root should be between 12GB and 20GB

- Using LVM for your 3 OS partitions is NOT required, but doesn't hurt anything, but can be helpful. Standard partitions are just as fine for simpler system setups.

- basic Amahi installs should have at least the /var/hda/files partition mounted as the unique drive
(in the case of the OP, the 1TB drive should be mounted as /var/hda/files)
This ensures the shares are on another drive from the OS. Long story short, easier to manage.

- For those with the desire to mirror with greyhole, you "should" have 3 minimum partition mounts as follows....
1) /var/hda/files (with greyhole ON, this is known as the LZ -- landing zone -- and this partition doubles as storage for shares that you choose NOT to enable with greyhole.)
2) /var/hda/files/drives/drive01
3) /var/hda/files/drives/drive02
(with greyhole ON, these 2 drive## partitions point each to a physical drive and are used by greyhole to mirror selected folders that are greyhole enabled.)
Note that partition 1 above, does not need to be on a separate drive, but it is beneficial.
-- Yes I realize that this entails needing at least 3 drives for an HDA, but it is just a recommendation out of experience.

It should also be noted that if doing this in a virtual-machine environment, much of the physical concepts above, go out the window.
----------------------

As for those specific questions...

1. What are the recommended partitions for amahi 7.1? (remebering Greyhole constraints). (as above) answered above

2. I have an 80Gb and 10000Gb drives available. Does it make sense to use the 80Gb for system and 1000Gb for data? If so, how do I configure this during install? yes it makes sense, and 'answered above'

3. Are there any special partition requirements for owncloud?
It's a good idea to make sure to "mount shares locally" to the HDA, so that owncloud can work directly with the shares you want to access via owncloud. As Samba and Greyhole work in conjunction to manage data, having apps that do a lot of data juggling amounts to a lot of metadata juggling afterwords. There is more to this that merits understanding the potential side-effects of all the data I/O

4. Is there a document that explains in very simple terms the purpose of the partitions?
Explained above, but for such explanations, the Fedora documentation is best for the OS-specific partitions. The Amahi specific partitions are well explained in the wiki and here.

[bigfoot65]

It would be nice to have some good tutorials in the wiki for such questions. Unfortunately, without community contributions they just don't happen. We rely heavily on users to document in the wiki for others.

The Amahi team does not have the resources to work it so hopefully what sgtfoo starts can develope into something that others can add to and find useful.

[cowen]

Firstly, what an excellent response. Thank you very much for your time with this.

Going on from your advice, and looking what spare HDD's I have lieing around gathering dust, my new plan is as follows:
- 80Gb System Drive
- /boot 500Mb
- /swap 2Gb (this is actually what Amahi sets this to by default)
- /root ~70Gb (Just because that is what is left on this disk)
- 500Gb Drive
- /var/hda/files
- 1000Gb
- /var/hda/files/drives/drive01
- 1000Gb
- /var/hda/files/drives/drive02

I think this is maybe a little over the top, but I have the hardware here anyway and so this puts it to good use.

One final question (if I dare), is Greyhole installed automatically with Amahi 7.1?

[bigfoot65]

Sorry, no it's not. It's there, but you must set it up manually. We will be releasing a GUI at some point, but cannot say when.
https://wiki.amahi.org/index.php/Amahi_ ... n#Greyhole

[sgtfoo]

FYI, cpg helped us add this to the Amahi FAQ...

http://www.amahi.org/faq#what-is-the-re ... or-my-hda-

[cowen]

Thanks to everyones support here.

It has taken some a while but I finally have time to set this up. One question though....
What is the upgrade path for something like Greyhole?

Actually, I guess my real question is, if I install and configure this now manually, will I have to start again when Greyhole is released with an auto install and a UI?

I am happy to wait a few weeks for Greyhole to be released for auto-install, I can take measures to save my data in the meantime. I assume if I configure the drives as described previously, then I am ready to go when it becomes available. The drives will just be unused until then?

One additional question regarding Greyhole. I read that you specify the number of copies of data you wish. Is this the number of copies from the landing zone (so if I have LZ, drive0 and drive1, the number of copies could be 2 max?).

[bigfoot65]

I am happy to wait a few weeks for Greyhole to be released for auto-install, I can take measures to save my data in the meantime. I assume if I configure the drives as described previously, then I am ready to go when it becomes available. The drives will just be unused until then?

No time table on release. It may be more than a few weeks. You can do the manual install, then make a few minor changes when the automated one is LIVE. If you don't mind waiting then not doing it may be best. Just understand there is no set date of release.

One additional question regarding Greyhole. I read that you specify the number of copies of data you wish. Is this the number of copies from the landing zone (so if I have LZ, drive0 and drive1, the number of copies could be 2 max?).

I may be wrong, but two drives yields 1 copy I believe. One drive is for the master copy and the second drive will hold a copy. Might check the Greyhole web site for clarification.

[cowen]

Just a quick Thank You to the guys that gave support here.

I now have my server running, Greyhole is installed and functioning correctly and I am in the process of copying data onto it.

There were a few red herrings with the Greyhole instructions though. For example, the wiki refers to a parameter 'storage_pool_directory' and the greyhole.conf file has 'storage_pool_drive'. This is pretty obvious when you spot it, but with everything being so new to me, I hesitated a moment before editing.

Am I allowed to edit this information or contribute to the WIKI. Clearly I am not an expert, but little things like the error above could save someone a moment of doubt.


Finally, of course a small question. Can the Amahi/Fedora created Home directories be added to Greyhole (to duplicate the data across 2 drives)? If not, no biggy!

Thanks Guys